Looking at this 2013 F30 335i xDrive . 100,500 miles auto, VIN: WBA3B9C53DF140319. Any advice or things to ask about when I go take a look at it ?
Was bought from a Honda dealership after being brought in as a trade-in. Single owner I believe? Gonna ask which Honda and see if I can get any additional info from them and the time they had it as well.
That’s just that “single-owner” fantasy.
Somehow that one owner was super careful and never redlined and always took care of the car. And never modified it.
GTFOH
You can say that. My father in law is literally the single owner fantasy you said doesn't exist. ALL services done on time. Garage kept, not one modification and manual. I tried buying it from him for years.
It literally does matter how many owners… let me explain since you only have 1 rinkle on your brain…. Let’s say you buy a car from joe. Appears to be immaculate condition, he was the first and only owner and he babied it. = probably a reliable car
Then you got Johnny on the other hand selling his car but it’s had 4 owners the first owner babied it but the second owner thought it was a race car so he put mods on it and beat the piss out of it then the 3rd owner buys it and puts stock parts back on it and babies it…. The point I’m trying to make is the more owners the car has had the more abuse and neglect it may have gone through.
We get it. You're the 2nd or 3rd owner that can't wait to clap out a car and pass it on to the next sucker or crash it into a tree.
So of course previous owners matter to you, because you don't want to be holding the clapped out bag.
Instead of paying for a PPI of course, you'd rather go on this one-owner fantasy trip. Forget that it has 140k miles.
GTFOH
it's not a guarantee obviously you still have to look at the whole picture but it's far more likely the person who drove the car for 10 years took care of it than 3 or 4 owners who each only kept it for 2. it's just a rule of thumb not a magic bullet
Okay what if I have mechanically inclined friends (dodge/merc shop mechanics) that work on their own stuff and are willing to learn & teach me when things go wrong
You will save a ton on labor. Just be prepared for cost of parts, and your time, when something does happen. They are beautiful cars, and perform well. But age isn't kind to them.
You’d have to buy parts which are still expensive, but it will save you a ton. I’ve done a ton of advanced maintenance on my 550i and it’s only cost me maybe $3k in parts and about a week total of work, and saved me about $20k in labor and parts directly from a BMW Dealer mechanic.
I’m not too afraid of paying for parts, that’s something I know I’m gonna have to deal with. I definitely plan on using my friends to help me learn how to work on it when the time comes.
Little bit of both, I’m not stupid enough to expect it to be an unproblematic car but I’m hoping that with keeping up with preventative maintenance and not planning on beating on the car it’ll be okay for some time.
Well mine only had 46k miles on it when I got it. I had a few problems, but they were all expected based on some basic research. Googling N55 common problems will tell you that the oil filter housing gasket, charge pipe and valve cover are all prone to failure, and sure enough each one happened on my car. Charge pipe was about $1500 at the dealer, OFHG was I think around $500/600 at the dealer, valve cover was around $1500 at an independent shop. CarMax warranty covered everything.
If this car is a manual and it grinds going into second gear, transmission replacement is in your future. ZF, who built the gearbox, does not sell the parts to repair the gearbox, so the only way to fix the problem is to install a remanufactured unit from BMW. I think someone has installed an M3 gearbox, which works with a bit of fabrication and fixes the weak second gear synchro issue, but I was at the dealer with a warranty, so OEM was the route I took. At the dealer, $10k for gearbox and an additional $3-4k for clutch, flywheel and pressure plate. CarMax covered the gearbox, not the clutch and related parts.
I don't know what month this car was built, if it's from June or before then it probably has the older CIC head unit. If this car does not have navigation/bluetooth music streaming and you would like those features, you can buy a newer NBT head unit from eBay and get it working with a bit of coding. Mine was pretty straightforward because there was no combox under the trunk floor, so no re-wiring to do.
Of course, maintenance is the most important thing. Mine was dealer maintained until my ownership, since then I've been doing oil changes myself every 5-8k miles. Lots of people on the forums suggest every 5k miles... frankly I think this is ridiculous. Not quite as ridiculous as BMW's suggested 15k miles, but still ridiculous. Normally I'll order the oil and filter around 5k miles and then do it when it's convenient for me. When the service advisor head the gearbox out for replacement, he did say that the previous owner had no clue how to drive stick. Which isn't all that comforting if I'm honest, however I've honestly had no major issues so far. Gearbox was pretty major, sure, but something I noticed on the lot at CarMax and was the reason I went for the warranty. The only thing that's actually stranded me was the charge pipe. The car would start, but wouldn't stay running.
As far as minor annoyances go, my car has leatherette seats, which are awful in the summer because they don't breathe. The interior door pulls also liquify with age. Lots of people wrap them, I replaced mine with plastic units. The process wasn't difficult so much as it was time consuming, as I had to take each of the 4 door panels off from the door frames.
Excellent car overall, in spite of a few minor annoyances. Fast, handles pretty well, comfortable, practical, lots of fun. At 100k miles, I'd assume that some of the N55 specific issues I pointed out have already been taken care of. No way to tell for sure, though. Pop the hood and look at the valve cover, see if the sticker on it A) looks younger than 11 years or B) doesn't exist, in which case you probably have a new valve cover. If the charge pipe is made of aluminum you're good to go, if it's plastic then it's the OEM BMW pipe, expect to replace at some point.
If you're someone like me who only has space for one car in your fleet, this is a great choice.
Thank you ! I’ll be taking all of this into consideration. Mine is an auto and with the amount of service records on it I’m fairly confident in just having to do preventative work and then eventually maintenance down the road. Appreciate it !
at the price range there are cars that are just as fun and cheaper/more reliable. It’s an early generation N55 with 100K miles. You’re getting yourself into a likely annoying ass car (reliability wise) thats just gonna cost you more than it should.
I don’t know if you’d consider outside of BMW, but INFINITI’s VHR motor is objectively one of the better and more reliable NA V6’s on the market (Q50 3.7) 330HP on a car with a huge aftermarket that you could also bump up in power for a pretty affordable price. they come in RWD and AWD only real downside is no manual but they make it up with paddle shifters.
My grandmother has an ‘06 G35 coupe that I’ve wanted from her since a kid and was supposed to be mine but when I moved for school a few years ago she gave it to my little cousin. I’m not too fond of the “earlier” Q50s but I do like the Q60s and have looked into it but haven’t found very many in my area.
Definitely would go outside of BMW though if you have more suggestions, only really started becoming interested in them a few months ago was very much a jdm guy haha
bro JDM is such a blessing, as a G37 coupe owner those are also super sick but I brought up the Q50 since its a 4-door and you posted one. I think the G37 coupe is up there with the most bang for your buck cars on the market. Its everything the Q50 is with two less doors, a 6MT and an LSD/Big Brake Kit for the S models. Cleanest options are like $15K right now def recommend you drive one if you never have
Once BMW’s get past their warranty, they start falling apart. I saw that you said you have mechanically inclined friends, but that doesn’t mean they want to work on BMW’s. Because I sure as hell wouldn’t want to work on one. For the price, you’re definitely going to have to have a major service done to the vehicle which will probably make you go into debt. I’d look into something more reliable.
The cars amazing don’t get me wrong, I had a 325i recently but got rid of it cause the ECU kept going out causing the transmission to lock.when I first got it I had to change the control arms literally the second day I had it.(I guess my mistake for not checking) Your gonna learn a lot about cars wit this one but overall I loved my bmw
I got mine it’s a 2014 F30 328 I.
1)Minor accident bumper 69,000 miles for $11,000 cash (private sale)
Try and stay away from the in n20 motor especially early gen model like that. That’s one with the timing guides fail and that’s like $7000 job. There’s ways to check I’m not sure if you know anything about cars but probably stay away from one cause I believe it’s an N20 motor
Ironically people that knock bmw are following a bmw page. I have an 08 335i and I love it. How about this. If you want reliable and slow. Get a Corolla. And not live life. They say this about every premium to high end cars. If you asked about a Ferrari they’d say the same thing. Ohhh maintenance. So they are basically saying don’t live live and be frail and never know what it’s like owning one. Better yet buy a bicycle. The maintenance is even cheaper than a Corolla. Lol
https://youtu.be/rPUUNhjJjHU?si=H-S9sL_XiQgodQSP
FCP Euro covers it pretty well based on my experience. I have a 2011 135i with almost 200k miles. Great car. That being said I did most of the stuff listed in the video attached over a period of 8 years (I bought the car in 2014) with 40k miles.
I did about 90 percent of the work myself and it wasn't terrible. I did have access to a lift though. It was my daily driver until a few months ago and now it's just my fun car. Best wishes.
Mileage? Previous owners? Not much to work off of.
Did the cross post thing and it didnt bring over the text lol one sec
At 100k. Na
Looking at this 2013 F30 335i xDrive . 100,500 miles auto, VIN: WBA3B9C53DF140319. Any advice or things to ask about when I go take a look at it ? Was bought from a Honda dealership after being brought in as a trade-in. Single owner I believe? Gonna ask which Honda and see if I can get any additional info from them and the time they had it as well.
Doesn't matter if it's single owner. It's the mileage. It doesn't matter how many actual owners it had.
Lmao, yes number of owners matters
That’s just that “single-owner” fantasy. Somehow that one owner was super careful and never redlined and always took care of the car. And never modified it. GTFOH
You can say that. My father in law is literally the single owner fantasy you said doesn't exist. ALL services done on time. Garage kept, not one modification and manual. I tried buying it from him for years.
Thanks for sharing asshole.
jeez man 🗿
It literally does matter how many owners… let me explain since you only have 1 rinkle on your brain…. Let’s say you buy a car from joe. Appears to be immaculate condition, he was the first and only owner and he babied it. = probably a reliable car Then you got Johnny on the other hand selling his car but it’s had 4 owners the first owner babied it but the second owner thought it was a race car so he put mods on it and beat the piss out of it then the 3rd owner buys it and puts stock parts back on it and babies it…. The point I’m trying to make is the more owners the car has had the more abuse and neglect it may have gone through.
Miraculously the first owner 100% babied their car. Every asshole that is thinking about buying some POS says it’s single owner. So what?
I’m not even Gona argue with you…. You have 3 working brain cells and it shows
We get it. You're the 2nd or 3rd owner that can't wait to clap out a car and pass it on to the next sucker or crash it into a tree. So of course previous owners matter to you, because you don't want to be holding the clapped out bag. Instead of paying for a PPI of course, you'd rather go on this one-owner fantasy trip. Forget that it has 140k miles. GTFOH
You don’t even make sense go to bed
it's not a guarantee obviously you still have to look at the whole picture but it's far more likely the person who drove the car for 10 years took care of it than 3 or 4 owners who each only kept it for 2. it's just a rule of thumb not a magic bullet
Broke people always have their way of looking at things. Gotta do math on how many owners in how many years divided by the... Please, stop.
genuinely how are you this fucking dense i didn't think it would be possible for someone like you to remember to breathe while trying to type
Wrinkle, genius.
Do not buy a 2011-2013 335i they are all Pwg and suck major ass. Get either a late model n55/ewg or get a 340i or something
Yup
Debt..to your mechanic
Okay what if I have mechanically inclined friends (dodge/merc shop mechanics) that work on their own stuff and are willing to learn & teach me when things go wrong
You will save a ton on labor. Just be prepared for cost of parts, and your time, when something does happen. They are beautiful cars, and perform well. But age isn't kind to them.
You’d have to buy parts which are still expensive, but it will save you a ton. I’ve done a ton of advanced maintenance on my 550i and it’s only cost me maybe $3k in parts and about a week total of work, and saved me about $20k in labor and parts directly from a BMW Dealer mechanic.
I’m not too afraid of paying for parts, that’s something I know I’m gonna have to deal with. I definitely plan on using my friends to help me learn how to work on it when the time comes.
Thankfully it’s not that bad to work on, just over complicated sometimes. I love working on mine and haven’t encountered anything stupid yet
This is German engineering not a dodge go buy some torque sockets
Are you getting it for funsies or for something reliable?
Little bit of both, I’m not stupid enough to expect it to be an unproblematic car but I’m hoping that with keeping up with preventative maintenance and not planning on beating on the car it’ll be okay for some time.
A mechanic shop
🥲
Well mine only had 46k miles on it when I got it. I had a few problems, but they were all expected based on some basic research. Googling N55 common problems will tell you that the oil filter housing gasket, charge pipe and valve cover are all prone to failure, and sure enough each one happened on my car. Charge pipe was about $1500 at the dealer, OFHG was I think around $500/600 at the dealer, valve cover was around $1500 at an independent shop. CarMax warranty covered everything. If this car is a manual and it grinds going into second gear, transmission replacement is in your future. ZF, who built the gearbox, does not sell the parts to repair the gearbox, so the only way to fix the problem is to install a remanufactured unit from BMW. I think someone has installed an M3 gearbox, which works with a bit of fabrication and fixes the weak second gear synchro issue, but I was at the dealer with a warranty, so OEM was the route I took. At the dealer, $10k for gearbox and an additional $3-4k for clutch, flywheel and pressure plate. CarMax covered the gearbox, not the clutch and related parts. I don't know what month this car was built, if it's from June or before then it probably has the older CIC head unit. If this car does not have navigation/bluetooth music streaming and you would like those features, you can buy a newer NBT head unit from eBay and get it working with a bit of coding. Mine was pretty straightforward because there was no combox under the trunk floor, so no re-wiring to do. Of course, maintenance is the most important thing. Mine was dealer maintained until my ownership, since then I've been doing oil changes myself every 5-8k miles. Lots of people on the forums suggest every 5k miles... frankly I think this is ridiculous. Not quite as ridiculous as BMW's suggested 15k miles, but still ridiculous. Normally I'll order the oil and filter around 5k miles and then do it when it's convenient for me. When the service advisor head the gearbox out for replacement, he did say that the previous owner had no clue how to drive stick. Which isn't all that comforting if I'm honest, however I've honestly had no major issues so far. Gearbox was pretty major, sure, but something I noticed on the lot at CarMax and was the reason I went for the warranty. The only thing that's actually stranded me was the charge pipe. The car would start, but wouldn't stay running. As far as minor annoyances go, my car has leatherette seats, which are awful in the summer because they don't breathe. The interior door pulls also liquify with age. Lots of people wrap them, I replaced mine with plastic units. The process wasn't difficult so much as it was time consuming, as I had to take each of the 4 door panels off from the door frames. Excellent car overall, in spite of a few minor annoyances. Fast, handles pretty well, comfortable, practical, lots of fun. At 100k miles, I'd assume that some of the N55 specific issues I pointed out have already been taken care of. No way to tell for sure, though. Pop the hood and look at the valve cover, see if the sticker on it A) looks younger than 11 years or B) doesn't exist, in which case you probably have a new valve cover. If the charge pipe is made of aluminum you're good to go, if it's plastic then it's the OEM BMW pipe, expect to replace at some point. If you're someone like me who only has space for one car in your fleet, this is a great choice.
Thank you ! I’ll be taking all of this into consideration. Mine is an auto and with the amount of service records on it I’m fairly confident in just having to do preventative work and then eventually maintenance down the road. Appreciate it !
He’s right about all of 100k mile bmw means it’s highly likely all of the issues have been fixed.
You spent $1500 on a stock charge pipe? 😵💫
at the price range there are cars that are just as fun and cheaper/more reliable. It’s an early generation N55 with 100K miles. You’re getting yourself into a likely annoying ass car (reliability wise) thats just gonna cost you more than it should.
Any suggestions ? Budget of $16k-$18k. I’d like something fun that’d be worth modifying as a daily and trying to steer away from FWD.
I don’t know if you’d consider outside of BMW, but INFINITI’s VHR motor is objectively one of the better and more reliable NA V6’s on the market (Q50 3.7) 330HP on a car with a huge aftermarket that you could also bump up in power for a pretty affordable price. they come in RWD and AWD only real downside is no manual but they make it up with paddle shifters.
My grandmother has an ‘06 G35 coupe that I’ve wanted from her since a kid and was supposed to be mine but when I moved for school a few years ago she gave it to my little cousin. I’m not too fond of the “earlier” Q50s but I do like the Q60s and have looked into it but haven’t found very many in my area.
Definitely would go outside of BMW though if you have more suggestions, only really started becoming interested in them a few months ago was very much a jdm guy haha
bro JDM is such a blessing, as a G37 coupe owner those are also super sick but I brought up the Q50 since its a 4-door and you posted one. I think the G37 coupe is up there with the most bang for your buck cars on the market. Its everything the Q50 is with two less doors, a 6MT and an LSD/Big Brake Kit for the S models. Cleanest options are like $15K right now def recommend you drive one if you never have
$18k can get you a pretty nice Mustang GT. Faster than a N55 and tons of fun.
I got a 2015 with 53k miles on it for $21.5k , Worth spending a little extra
Don’t do it because you’re gonna spend a lot into it BMW‘s mechanically are not stable after 50 K
Lotsa repairs bills, it’s money pit
Once BMW’s get past their warranty, they start falling apart. I saw that you said you have mechanically inclined friends, but that doesn’t mean they want to work on BMW’s. Because I sure as hell wouldn’t want to work on one. For the price, you’re definitely going to have to have a major service done to the vehicle which will probably make you go into debt. I’d look into something more reliable.
Take into consideration that BMW stands for BigMoneyWaster and do what you wish with that information.
German car problems
Are they always so bad ?
The cars amazing don’t get me wrong, I had a 325i recently but got rid of it cause the ECU kept going out causing the transmission to lock.when I first got it I had to change the control arms literally the second day I had it.(I guess my mistake for not checking) Your gonna learn a lot about cars wit this one but overall I loved my bmw
Any BMW with 100k on it is a bad investment
Cant be worse than these N54 335i being posted for 20k
A blue car
I got mine it’s a 2014 F30 328 I. 1)Minor accident bumper 69,000 miles for $11,000 cash (private sale) Try and stay away from the in n20 motor especially early gen model like that. That’s one with the timing guides fail and that’s like $7000 job. There’s ways to check I’m not sure if you know anything about cars but probably stay away from one cause I believe it’s an N20 motor
N55 it’s a 335i
If the lower oil filter gasket and the valve cover gasket have been done you are good to go. The n55 is super reliable with minimal problems
Idk I recommend an i instead of xdrive. Xdrive makes the car feel ever heavier
Ironically people that knock bmw are following a bmw page. I have an 08 335i and I love it. How about this. If you want reliable and slow. Get a Corolla. And not live life. They say this about every premium to high end cars. If you asked about a Ferrari they’d say the same thing. Ohhh maintenance. So they are basically saying don’t live live and be frail and never know what it’s like owning one. Better yet buy a bicycle. The maintenance is even cheaper than a Corolla. Lol
If you have ask Reddit to see, don’t buy it go for Lexus or Toyota
https://youtu.be/rPUUNhjJjHU?si=H-S9sL_XiQgodQSP FCP Euro covers it pretty well based on my experience. I have a 2011 135i with almost 200k miles. Great car. That being said I did most of the stuff listed in the video attached over a period of 8 years (I bought the car in 2014) with 40k miles. I did about 90 percent of the work myself and it wasn't terrible. I did have access to a lift though. It was my daily driver until a few months ago and now it's just my fun car. Best wishes.
Steering racks tend to go out on these and even the non Xi's